dj-rashad-afterlife

DJ Rashad: Afterlife

The first release from the new Teklife label is a loving, flawed tribute to the artist who helped put them and footwork on the map.
DJ Rashad
Afterlife
Teklife
2016-04-08

It’s still hard to believe that DJ Rashad has been dead for two years. The pioneer of footwork developed a rabid following and cultivated something of a legacy with his frenetic, fast-paced tracks. Others have followed, but it looks more and more as if his is a mantle that won’t be easily claimed by anyone else. Thus, any Rashad release, however threadbare or poorly assembled, is a welcome addition to his catalog. Fortunately, Afterlife doesn’t bear many of the telltale signs of a post-mortem cash-in. However, for all its merits, the album can’t help but feel unfinished, like the last echoes of an artist who left far too soon.

Unlike most posthumous releases, the collaborators who helped assemble Afterlife from the vault of unreleased Rashad tracks were very open about their involvement in the project. It keeps in line with the ethos of Teklife, Rashad’s old crew who formed the label that released Afterlife. Collaboration and fostering a communal spirit of creativity has always been key for them, and that shines through on Afterlife’s best moments. DJ Spinn and Taso do well to evoke Rashad’s core sound on “Roll Up That Loud”, the collection’s opening track and one of its finest. From there, things start to get scattered; anyone looking for the cohesive arc of Double Cup would be slightly disappointed. That doesn’t lessen the power of tracks like “Come Close”, which twists its familiar Ne-Yo sample into something truly sinister, or the gleefully vulgar “Wear Her Pussy Out”.

Though it’s a collaborative album by nature, Afterlife finds its contributors taking a step back for Rashad, allowing their fallen comrade’s work to take center stage above all else. As admirable as this sentiment surely is, it ends up working to the collection’s detriment. There’s no getting around the fact that Rashad never finished these compositions and that they were the framework of something bigger that sadly never came. As a result, much of Afterlife feels bare, like sketches that were never colored in. It’s a testament to Rashad’s considerable talent that something as slight as “Oh God” could still be as moving as it is, but its day-glo synth samples only hint at a larger concept that was never fully realized there. Further on, “Ratchet City” feels more like an imitation of Rashad more than an actual Rashad piece, leading one to ponder that notion that kills so many posthumous releases: did the artist even intend for this stuff to see the light of day?

Despite its faults, Afterlife was clearly assembled with a love and respect for the man whose work flows through it. At its best, it highlights the talents of the Teklife crew while reminding us just how much of a loss we suffered with Rashad’s passing. Even in the simple, sketched-out form in which they are presented on Afterlife, Rashad’s tracks demonstrate an emotional and technical depth that is unlikely to be equaled. As far as swansongs go, Afterlife is a fitting tribute to a consummate artist.

RATING 6 / 10